History Commons^™

Jean Jacques Vioget The Forgotten Swiss Of Early California, Mary Jean Aerni, Ph.D.

Swiss American Historical Society Newsletter

What makes a hero? Do heroes exist in themselves, or only insofar as they are valuable in the folk mythology of their time? What criteria are used to label one man as an important historical personage, whose name and rank are to be noted and memorize, while a contemporary of greater personal achievement is consigned to oblivion?

Guest Workers As An "Automatic Stabilizer" Of Cyclical Unemployment In Switzerland, W. E. Kuhn

Swiss American Historical Society Newsletter

In the early 1970's, in excess of 5 percent of the total population of France, Germany, Britain, and Switzerland were immigrants, The extreme case was Switzerland, where one person in six had come from a foreign country. Between them, the four mentioned countries had nearly 10 million immigrants; this accounts for more than nine-tenths of the West European total of nearly 11 million. This estimate may be on the low side; Feurer indicates that in 1972 some 8 million guest workers lived in Europe who together with their families comprised about 13 million people, contributing some Sfr. 80 billion (about …

Book Review: Zwingli, Heinz K. Meier

Swiss American Historical Society Newsletter

G. R. Potter, Emeritus Professor of Medieval History, University of Sheffield, has written what is probably the best one-volume biography of the great Swiss humanist and reformer Huldrych Zwingli (1484-1531) in any language. This achievement was possible because Potter, at the height of a long and distinguished career, immersed himself in the mass of available materials and came up with a product that is scholarly and at the same time eminently readable. The scholarship is reflected in the numerous footnotes on every page as well as in the bibliography. Potter is at home in the libraries and archives of Zurich …

Book Review: The History Of Folsom, New Jersey 1845-1976. Bicentennial Edition., Heinz K. Meier

Swiss American Historical Society Newsletter

Gertrude M. Eckhardt, a member of our society, has produced a handsome volume on a small New Jersey community which her grandfather helped found back in the late 1840s. The community was then called New Germany and consisted of a few doxed German immigrants. They founded their Evangelical Lutheran Church in 1853 and went about earning a living out of the abundant forest lands of their neighborhood. Later in the century a small group of Italian immigrants joined the original group, bringing with them new flavors and new skills. The borough never grew into a big settlement but stayed a …

Notes To Our Members, Heinz K. Meier

Swiss American Historical Society Newsletter

1. The 1977 SAHS Annual Meeting

This year's annual meeting will take place on October 29 at the Faculty Club of the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. A separate invitation with program will be mailed to our members in October.

Book Review: The United States In Norwegian History, Max Silberschmidt Zurich

Swiss American Historical Society Newsletter

This book is significant for a number of reasons. It is not generally known that after Ireland Norway "is the European nation which has sent the largest percentage of its population to America." The number of emigrants is not impression as such because Norway is, in population today four million, a very small country. "Norwegian America," however, is a factor in Norway's history, of more weight and of greater importance than Swiss-America is Swiss history, for the simple reason that the United States was the land of emigration for Norwegians. Naturally enough, because it is, transatlantically speaking, its direct neighbor!

"Der Glarner": Abraham Blumer Of Zion Reformed Church, Allentown, Professor William T. Parsons

Swiss American Historical Society Newsletter

Up in the Lechadaal Pennsylvania Dutch Country, people tend to credit origins and you will often hear them say of virtues and of foibles, "he came by it honestly." They mean that children inherit characteristics, or that a new generation often mirrors the traits of its predecessor. So it was, surely, with Abraham Blumer, Ministre du Sancte Evangile, heir to family traditions of leadership in local church, business and civic affairs.

Book Review: Die Eigenart Der Zurcher Auswanderer Nach Amerika 1734-1744, Walter D. Kamphoefner

Swiss American Historical Society Newsletter

This book, a Swiss doctoral dissertation which owes much to the guidance of Prof. Leo Schelbert, is a model case-study of emigration in a restricted area and time-period. Taking the Canton Zurich during the decade of heaviest emigration in the 18th century, it attempts to reconstruct the social, economic, and religious milieu from which the emigrants came, and seeks to determine the characteristics which set them apart from those who remained behind.

Introduction Remarks, Heinz K. Meier

Swiss American Historical Society Newsletter

1) The core of the current issue of the SAHS Newsletter consists of a long article on Abraham Blumer, Swiss Reformed clergyman in the Lehigh Valley during the period of the American Revolution. Professor William T. Parsons, the author, writes "Blumer and his contemporary Swiss and German church leaders" are "universally overlooked" even in specialized words on the independence era. The article thus opens a window into a little known aspect of Swiss emigration to this country. Blumer was a man of many qualities with a wide variety of interests. The reader wishes he would learn even more about him …

Quo Vadis?, Alice H. Finckh

Swiss American Historical Society Newsletter

Is the time approaching when members of the SAHS might wish to modify its charter of its purpose? The question has arisen in conversations and at meetings, and the next two or three years might provide an opportunity to make a decision. Shall we continue to concentrate on Swiss-American history and related fields, or shall we try to broaden our purpose (and possibly change our name) to include other disciplines, and other activities beyond the publication of three Newsletters a year, occasional grants-in-aid, and regional and annual meetings?

Introductory Remarks, Heinz K. Meier

Swiss American Historical Society Newsletter

This issue of the SAHA news letter is late due to the fact that it was more difficult than usual to get the materials together. We still plan to publish three letters in 1977 as we have become accustomed during the past five years.

The Thirteenth Annual Meeting Of The Swiss American Historical Society, Bruno Gujer, Leo Schelbert

Swiss American Historical Society Newsletter

The thirteenth annual meeting of the reactivated SAHA was held on Saturday, October 30, 1976, at the Embassy of Switzerland, 2900 Cathedral Avenue, N.W., in Washington, D.C.

Book Review: "Ein Lesebuch, Choix De Textes, Raccolta Di Testi, Collecziun De Texts", Lukas Burckhardt

Swiss American Historical Society Newsletter

Herausgegben vom Schweizerischen Bundesrat. Ein Lesebuch, Choix de textes, Raccolta di testi, Collecziun de texts. Schweizerische Bundeskanzlei, Bern, 1975, 684 Seiten, Fr. 25 .--.

The Swiss Federal Constitution of 1848 was totally amended in 1874. The Swiss government wanted to commemorate these two 28 basic dates in an appropriate way, by publishing a textbook which presents statements by politically and culturally active Swiss of all walks 0f life and beliefs in the past hundred years.

Book Review: "A Guide To Foreign Genealogical Research", M. A. W.

Swiss American Historical Society Newsletter

Maralyn A. Wellauer, A Guide to Foreign Genealogical Research. A Selected Bibliography of Printed Material with Addresses.

This is a reference guide for genealogists who want to extend a pedigree line beyond the Immigrant Ancestor without engaging the services of a professional genealogist.

Book Review: "Nathaniel Hawthorne Meets Swiss Immigrants: A Research Note"

Swiss American Historical Society Newsletter

Walter L. Robbins , "Nathaniel Hawthorne Meets W Immigrants: A Research Note."

Randall Stewart reports in his work Nathaniel Hawthorne. A Biography (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1948), p . 42, that Hawthorne had undertaken during the "solitary years" 1825 to 1837 various journeys, in 1833 or 1834 possibly to Niagara and Detroit. He published his apparently firsthand descriptions in the New England Magazine Volume XI (December 1835), 398-409, which contains a report entitled "The Canal-Boat." In that sketch Hawthorne tells of his encounter with a Swiss immigrant group. It is quoted here after the following edition: Nathaniel Hawthorne, Mosses …

Book Review: "The Postage Stamps Of Switzerland 1843-1862", H. K. Meier

Swiss American Historical Society Newsletter

Paul Mirabaud and Alex de Reuterskiold, The Postage Stamps o f Switzerland 1843-1862, Paris, 1899 . Reprint by Quarterman Publications, Inc., 5 South Union Street, Lawrence, Massachusetts 01843, 1975. $35.00.

Quarterman Publications provides the following description: "The Postage Stamps of Switzerland was originally published in 1899 in a limited edition of which only 150 copies were in English. Chapters on the various Cantonal issues, the transitional Hayone [sic: should be Rayons), and the seated Helvetias are among those Mirabaud, and his colleague Baron Alex de Reuterskiold, assembled from information obtained from the existing literature a well as the records and …

Book Review: "Einführung In Die Schweizerische Auswanderungsgeschichte Der Neuzeit", Heinz K. Meier

Swiss American Historical Society Newsletter

Leo Schelbert, Einführung in die Schweizerische Auswanderungsgeschichte der Neuzeit. Zurich: Verlag Leemann, 1976. 443 pp. S. Fr. 50. Printed as Beiheft 16 of the Schweizerische Zeitschrift fur Geschichte.

Leo Schelbert's "Introduction to the history of the Swiss emigration in modern times" is a massive work of more than 400 pages of relatively small print. The work is divided into four parts, titled "Theoretical Foundation," "Historical Survey," Selected Documents," and "Historiographical Introduction." Each of the four parts is almost self contained and covers the subject of Swiss emigration from a different angle. As a consequence there are certain repetitions and overlappings. …

Book Review: "Americans From Germany: A Study In Cultural Diversity", Leo Schelbert

Swiss American Historical Society Newsletter

Robert H. Billigmeier, Americans from Germany : A Study in Cultural Diversity. Belmont, California: Wadsworth Publishing Co., 1974. 189 pp. $5.00.

Historians interested in immigration to the territory of the United States or in the ethnic dimension of American social history will welcome this synthesis of the story of immigrants from German-speaking lands. It describes "in both general and specific terms the complex social experience of one of America's most significant cultural and population components" (Preface).

Pierre-Frederic Droz: The 'American': The Story Of An Itinerant Watchmaker, Leo Schelbert

Swiss American Historical Society Newsletter

Most immigrants, especially those who came to stay in a certain country for only a short while, belonged to the "inarticulate," that is to those whose experiences, joys and trials went largely unrecorded. A few of them, however, did leave rich and vivid accounts of their journeys and adventures. To them belongs Pierre-Frederic Droz, known to his countrymen as the "American" who remained for a good part of his life a man on the move.